


The Show Must Go On

by Reishiin



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2019-02-04 10:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12769566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: Dennis, before the Lancers.





	The Show Must Go On

**Author's Note:**

> [posted on tumblr july 17th 2016](http://vanishing-rainias.tumblr.com/post/147568292518/), after ep 114

 

 

Dennis is seven, and on the corner of the street across from his house there is a man who changes the faces of cards and makes coins disappear.

He pushes through the legs of people to the front of the crowd to see, and his eyes open wide in wonder. How did the man do it? It must be magic.

“There’s no such thing as magic,” his mother says, that evening at dinner. “It’s just a trick.”

So Dennis goes back the next day, and keeps watch on the cards instead of the man’s wild gestures. And then he sees the trick.

He goes up to the man afterwards and says,  _Teach me_.

“Observant boy, aintcha?”

The man says, the techniques just take practice. The real magic is making people feel wonder, and bringing smiles to their faces.

Dennis nods. He stays by the man’s table all day, every day, and learns quickly.

And then one day the man stops coming, and people stop flocking to the corner of that street. They say he’s been arrested for hustling. They say he’s been taken to the Duel Academy.

Dennis stops going, too.

 

_“For my next trick, I will make you disappear.”_

 

* * *

 

Dennis is ten, and he’s the best duelist in his class.

When he duels, he shuffles both his opponent’s deck and his own because the others like to see the way he does it. Riffle shuffle, false cut. They’re impressed. They don’t notice he’s controlling Trapeze Magician to the top of his deck.

All the middle schools are ramping up duel training, encouraging the seventh graders to apply to Duel Academia. They say it’s important to know how to defend yourself, and be prepared to fight on everyone’s behalf. They say Domino City is preparing for war.

Three hours a day, Dennis practices, not in the arena but in front of his mirror. Smile, draw. Misdirect. Misdirect. He can make cards jump and spin between his fingers like he can make coins dance on his knuckles. He’s not a good duelist, but there are other ways of winning.

“For my next trick,” he whispers, “I will make you disappear…”

 

* * *

 

No one has heard of the man who used to change card faces and make coins disappear on the corner of the street by Rintama High. But everyone has heard of Sakaki Yuushou, entertainment duelist.

 

 ::

 

At Academia, Dennis also learns that there are other ways of making people smile.

 _That was a good duel, I had fun._  
I like the way you do your hair.  
You did great today.

Soft touches and kind words that earn him a place in somebody’s heart.

In that place where winners live and losers die, smiles become the currency he trades in.

:: 

Dennis’ bunkmate is a boy named Yuuri, who is close to the Professor for reasons unknown and who doesn’t care for things like validation and encouragement and praise. When Dennis spins a coin on their shared desk for what must be the hundredth time that day, Yuuri picks it off the table and tucks it into his own pocket without lifting his eyes from his work.

For the first time in a long time Dennis doesn’t have to make himself smile, because somehow, he already is.

 

* * *

 

Dennis is fourteen, and he hears that the Professor is hunting a girl in the Xyz Dimension, and his heart jumps.

He asks Yuuri to put in a word on his behalf. That night, he’s called before the Professor.

He’s terrified. But he tells himself that it’s just another performance. And performances, he knows how to do.

“Why do you want to go to Xyz, Dennis?”

–You don’t have to answer the question that was said. You have to answer the question they are really asking.

“I dabble in entertainment and I know how to be inconspicuous. I can infiltrate their school, and I can find and capture the girl and bring her back to you…”

 

::

 

Dennis sets up a folding table on the corner of the street just outside Heartland Academy where Kurosaki Ruri goes. People arrive, drawn by the promise of entertainment, and soon he’s amassed a crowd of regulars.

He saves the difficult mark for when Sakaki Yuushou walks down the street.

“–Give me back my money, you dirty cheat—“

“–Hey, hey now, where’s the proof I did anything—“

Sakaki Yuushou stops to look for the source of the commotion, and Dennis knows he’s won. He walks over, breaks up the fight, looks over Dennis’s setup and then asks Dennis to turn over the money.

When the crowd’s gone, he says, “Better the money than your life. You’re a good kid, you shouldn’t be hustling cards on the street.”

“I got nowhere else to go, sir.” Dennis’ heart is in his throat but he knows how to pretend.

“Then come with me.”

Entertainment Dueling is the most beautiful thing Dennis has ever seen. The whole time Dennis is at Clover, when he smiles, he doesn’t care who’s looking.

 

::

 

Yuuri says the Professor is getting impatient, and won’t Dennis  _step on it_ if he still wants to keep his rank when he gets back to Academia.

Dennis sends back,  _Patience, man. Kurosaki Ruri has a lot of friends. It’s hard to get close, hard to get her alone._

He has to go.

He doesn’t want to go.

_“Are you having trouble, Dennis? You know what to do. Just say the word and we’ll be there._

_You do still want to have a place here when you come back, right?”_

 

::

 

Academia arrives in Heartland City, and Dennis shows them to the Resistance base, and Yuuri finishes Kurosaki Ruri with mechanical efficiency.

“I’ll be back in a bit for you.” He teleports away with the girl and leaves Dennis on top of the cliff.

For several minutes Dennis stands in silence, looking over the resistance base Ruri Kurosaki used to belong to, and the ruins of Heartland City. Then he opens his mouth and laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs. He’s high enough up that no one will notice.

This is how a long con works: You get close, close enough to belong, close enough that they trust you. And playing that role for so long, sometimes you begin to really believe it. That’s fine—it will even help you, because it makes your performance convincing. But when the job is done, you need to put it behind you and close the door.

Dennis knows this. He has always known this.

(So why does betrayal cut this deep?)

 

* * *

 

Dennis goes back to Academia, and life goes back to normal. He reacclimates to Academia’s stricter training regimen. He turns fifteen. He begins to forget Kurosaki Ruri.

(Three hours a day, Dennis practices. Entertainment Duels in Academia’s training rooms against Seto Kaiba’s computers, delivering his lines to an empty audience.)

And then he hears that the Professor is hunting a girl in the Standard Dimension.

Things are easier the second time around.

“Why do you want to go to Standard, Dennis?”

“I spent time in Xyz and learned their dueling,” Dennis says. This time his confidence is only half pretence. “I can infiltrate the LDS. I can find and capture the girl and bring her back to you…”

 

::

 

Sakaki Yuuya’s dueling is a little less practised, his technique a little rougher, but otherwise he’s very like his father.

Dennis swoops into the battle royale with Trapeze Magician in tow; scoops up Sakaki Yuuya and lets the monster deposit them both safely on the ground.

He did exactly the same thing when he first properly met Kurosaki Ruri, all that time ago. That thought makes him smile, a dazzling thing, as he introduces himself.

Things are easier, the second time around…

 


End file.
